Memo to Production Engineers & Manufacturers: Intellectual Property in TPPA Means You

Production engineers and manufacturers assessing their own position in the wider TPPA picture should devote special attention to the term “intellectual property.” This means patents.

The term intellectual property in the context of the TPPA covers copyright, its general meaning, and also your output category which was once covered by the word “patents.”

The term intellectual property is of relatively recent provenance and in New Zealand is often taken to cover the field of artistic endeavour especially in its digital manifestation such as in the Dotcom affair.

It spread to cover pharmaceutical formulae, until recently also described as patents. Then in a rush it now covered mechanical patents.

The waters have been muddied in regard to the precise meaning of the term in the context of the TPPA by the seeming single-focus on pharmaceuticals.

Production engineers and manufacturers must be aware that it includes three dimensional products as well.

More importantly still, this broad-based official term, an outcrop of the copyright sphere, ranks alongside health and safety as a prime non tariff barrier to imports.

The words “intellectual property” represent a prime example of the officialese that is often suspected of being implanted to confuse the productive sector.

In the event it was ram-rodded into global use by the United States anxious to protect its entertainment industry by giving its output equal “patent” status to products from the manufacturing and engineering sectors.